This invention generally relates to portable handheld lighters. More particularly, this invention is concerned with battery powered lighters for cigars and cigarettes.
Conventional cigarette lighters are used by consumers to ignite the tobacco in one end of a cigarette as the consumer forces air through the cigarette by inhaling. While many different devices and sources of heat could be used to ignite a cigarette, three of the most common ways to ignite a cigarette include using: a match; a coil that has been heated by passing an electric current through the coil; and a flame that is powered by a flammable liquid such as butane which is stored in a portion of the lighter. Unfortunately, all three of these devices can be used to ignite materials other than cigarettes or cigars. The match and flammable liquid lighter are considered to be particularly dangerous because both devices produce “open flames” which can be used, either intentionally or unintentionally, to ignite a wide range of flammable materials. In addition to the dangers associated with matches and electrically heated coils, lighters that contain a reservoir housing a flammable liquid are known to be especially dangerous because of the risk that the flammable liquid will be removed from the lighter and used in an illegal and destructive manner.
To reduce or eliminate the risks associated with using an open flame lighter, various attempts have been made to provide a lighter that will ignite a cigarette without using an open flame. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,268,553 discloses a battery powered lighter that uses a laser to ignite the tobacco. In another example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,235,157 discloses a battery powered lighter that uses a spiral electric heating element to elevate the temperature of the tobacco to ignite the cigarette. The same patent discloses a recessed opening into which the cigarette must be inserted to enable the heating element to contact the cigarette. The recessed opening is intended to inhibit the intentional setting of fires. Unfortunately, neither of these inventions is able to effectively limit the use of the lighter to igniting tobacco in a cigarette.
Therefore, there exists a need for a cigarette lighter that will effectively ignite the tobacco in a cigarette but cannot be used to ignite other materials such as a flammable liquid, strips of paper or a candle's wick.